Power purchase liability

Governor N.N. Vohra recently called a meeting of top brass of State bureaucracy and the PDD echelons to review power situation in the State. Our State is deficit in power requirement indigenously despite potential to generate hydroelectric power. Therefore the State has to purchase power from the neighbouring States or from the national grid, which is a regular feature. There is great effort on the part of power authorities in the State to generate as much or power as we need and even go beyond that and sell power to other states. We have the resources and technical manpower to achieve that goal provided we have adequate funds and the initiative.
It is revealed that Jammu and Kashmir’s projected cumulative liability on account of power purchase is expected to go up to about Rs 7000 crore by March 31 this year as against Rs 5037.49 crore as on March 31, 2015. This shows a big gap between the cost of power purchased from various sources and the amount of power dues recovered from the consumers. The State’s average demand is 2740 MW of energy and we have a deficit of 22 per cent energy. The Governor was informed that the State Government’s ‘in principle’ consent for participating in the Ujjwal DISCOM Assistance Yojna (UDAY), launched by the Union Ministry of Power, was conveyed on December 9, 2015. Under this scheme, the State Government is likely to be given a special dispensation to borrow Rs 2140 crore to clear some of the provisional liabilities ending September 2015.
Of course, there are gaps in revenue realization on account of power supply to the consumers. Pilferage on account of transmission and distribution has been discussed so often in these columns. We have not any clear and satisfactory report from the PDD authorities as to how much success they have achieved in plugging pilferage of power as well as to what extent they have been able to reduce wastage of power owing to sub-standard transmission network. We are of opinion that metering of all hitherto unmetered connections should be accomplished on war footing. Secondly streamlining of revenue collection has to be ensured so that computerized account is verified and finalized.
The Governor has issued orders for bringing various ongoing schemes of power generation and conservation to completion on time. It is reassuring that alternate transmission line via the Mughal Road has been approved so that Kashmir region does have to plunge into darkness if a serious fault happens in the existing trans-region 440 KV transmission line.
From the assessment given to the Governor by PDD authorities, we feel that the department is seriously considering streamlining of existing power distribution system and expediting completion of numerous hydroelectric power generating units in different part of the State. It kindles hope that in near future power situation in the State will be almost satisfactory.

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